Play the Test your awareness video.
Have you watched it? Read on.
Although it has been around a while it is yet a great example of the human condition.
I watched the video knowing that there would be a dancing bear, but while I had my eyes on the fast moving ball I missed him completely, my eyes were going BALL BALL BALL – there was no bear. So convinced was I that there was no bear in the first half of the video I rewound it I didn’t trust them to play the same video again – I thought there was some chicanery involved. But no there he was waltzing across the video – my awareness completely missing him.
In this way it is a great safety video, for raising the awareness of drivers to the fact that they need to be looking in discrete places for those cyclists like myself. But does it also point to a weakness in ourselves and how we fail to notice the BIG in the room. The BIG could be anything depending on the circumstances, but the most obvious is performed nightly in front of an audience who are all watching with keen eyes – the old magic trick, be it a slight of hand or a fantastical feat of prestidigitation. We don’t see the hand placing the rabbit in the pocket or the large mirror, we sometimes miss the bleeding obvious and it is always important when we see it to point instances out.
We so often end up looking in the wrong direction.
